2015-12-04

Mohammed Ali, a local pharmacist, said the fire erupted after the nightclub had closed when only workers would have been there. Mr. Ali thought at first the fire was a terror attack because of the ongoing tensions between Islamist groups and the government, as well as a Russian passenger plane believed to have been bombed by Islamic State on Oct. 31 in the Egyptian Sinai.

Mr. Ali said he realized that the attack was only a worker's dispute, albeit a deadly one, after he saw two men flee the scene on motorcycles and them remembered from the nightclub dispute the night before.